Republican DA launches investigation to find culprit behind fake trans mailers in Texas

A Republican district attorney has launched a criminal investigation into the mailers sent to thousands of Texas voters posing as guides from a transgender rights organization, all while a company is taking initial steps to end its role as a registered agent for a Wyoming LLC believed to be behind them.

As The Advocate has previously reported, an unknown party began distributing mailers and text messages from a group called the Texas Transgender Student Union earlier this month, falsely claiming to represent the Transgender Education Network of Texas nonprofit to residents across the state. Some of those mailers and texts contain inflammatory messages that TENT says it neither created nor authorized.

During a Thursday afternoon press briefing, Mimi Marziani, an attorney representing TENT, announced that the organization had filed a petition in Travis County court to uncover who is behind the impersonation campaign, stating it has had a staggering impact.

“This incident has led to extraordinary damage to TENT as an organization, and also to threats that continue to come in against TENT staff,” Marziani told reporters during a Zoom call.

Related: Texas trans rights group says text message impersonation campaign sparked hate

The mystery is getting additional help after Sarah Stogner, district attorney for Loving, Reeves and Ward counties west of Odessa, told The Texas Tribune her office has opened a criminal investigation into the mailers as potential forgery, a state jail felony in Texas. Stogner added the investigation could widen as more details are discovered.

“If this ends up being legal, it is everything that is wrong with our current political climate,” Stogner said, telling the Tribune that the timing of these mailers being so close to Election Day was not a mistake.

“If we were actually worried about kids and their safety, no one would be sending propaganda to spread that message further on television ads, in text messages, in written whatever,” she said. “If we are truly trying to protect children, we’d be focusing on how to put pedophiles in jail.”

Meanwhile, Northwest Registered Agent told Austin NBC affiliate KXAN that it was beginning to cut ties and “resign as the registered agent” for the entity referred to as the “Texas Transgender Student Union” in the falsified mailers.

“We have no way of knowing someone’s intent when they’re forming a new company, and Northwest Registered Agent has no knowledge of, or involvement in, our clients’ business operations,” a company spokesperson told KXAN. “We follow all state and federal laws, and we cooperate fully with law enforcement investigations.”

Related: Texas trans rights group asks court to expose who’s sending fake flyers to outrage conservatives

The company added that it serves “thousands of legitimate business owners across the U.S.,” and that after its formation, its role with an LLC was primarily limited to receiving and forwarding official mail to the client, according to KXAN.

Marziani said the mailers carried a return address resembling TENT’s and identified the so-called Texas Transgender Student Union as the sender. That group registered as a limited liability company in Wyoming on September 2, according to a business filing The Advocate obtained through the Wyoming secretary of state’s business portal.

The Texas Transgender Student Union is registered to an address in Sheridan, Wyoming, that serves as a “registered agent address for companies across the country,” according to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA.

Marziani said TENT sent a cease-and-desist letter to SnailWorks on Thursday, a Maryland-based direct mail company the nonprofit suspects helped distribute the mailers. The organization had not yet received a response, Marziani said, and does not know how many mailers were sent.

Last week, TENT sent a cease-and-desist letter to Infobip, a communications company it said controlled the phone numbers used in the text message campaign. Marziani said the company agreed to block the numbers from sending additional messages but declined to identify the account holders associated with them.

The Advocate contacted Infobip and SnailWorks for comment following Thursday’s briefing. Neither company immediately responded.

TENT is a transgender advocacy organization that provides educational resources, community programming, and political advocacy for LGBTQ+ Texans. Since the impersonation campaign began, the organization says it has taken its online resource center offline and suspended events, including a statewide voter engagement campaign that had been planned for months.

TENT staff members have also faced a wave of online harassment and threats, according to Marziani. She said the continuing harm underscores the urgency of identifying those responsible.

“We do believe our client has a number of claims, potentially against three actors under state and federal law,” Marziani said. “We would like to figure out the identity of who’s responsible during this election period.”